Sunday, February 9, 2014

Thevictorians Wobble, But They Still Fall Down

Woe is Val. She took a spill yesterday. Oh, not outside on the slippery, icy landscape. Nope. Val is not a conventional stumbler. She lurches to her own drummer. She slammed myself to the floora firma inside her own residence.

Yes, in her sad bid for attention, Val threw caution to the breather winds and her well-padded skeleton to the braided rug over press-down tile over concrete floor of her basement retreat. The timing was not conducive to attention-garnering. At 10:10 p.m., Genius had departed thirty minutes earlier, Hick had retired to his boudoir in anticipation of his 4:00 a.m. wake-up call for a business trip, and The Pony had stepped into the shower above a scant ten minutes previous.

So there was Val, wondering how things had gone so horribly wrong, helpless upon the floor like a turtle on its back. "AAAAAGGHHHH" did not elicit a reaction. So sad. Good thing Val's expiration date was not up.

I had just turned on my lamp, the one which previously needed pliers for operation, and was backing up to turn to my blue basement recliner. Unfortunately, the 12' x 8' braided rug which my grandma had given me way back before Genius was born had other ideas. That rug has gaps that open their toothless maws every now and then. Gaps between the rings of braids. One such gap chomped onto the heel of my red Croc. I thought I could save myself. I really did. In fact, I felt my momentum almost stop. I put my left hand down on a giant box of candy that Genius had gotten at Walmart on Thanksgiving night and given to The Pony for Christmas. It's down to eight pieces left. My hand crushed through the top, down into the bottom section, all the way to the table. But my Croc heel was still held captive by the gap. My center of gravity pulled me down, down, down, left arm scrabbling at that coffee table. Nope. Gravity won this one.

I suppose I'm lucky I didn't crack my skull. Thanks for the cushy braided attempted-murderer, Grandma. I have a lovely bruise on the inside of my elbow, a sore right abdomen from attempting to right myself in the crunch to end all crunches, and a pain between my big toe and second toe that has something to do with that Croc ending up sideways on my foot.

Yes. If Val falls in a basement and no one is there to hear...she still makes a sound. Several, in fact.

I'm filled with empathy my croc wearing friend. I shoveled snow in January, scooted around on the ice, no figure eights, but managed to stay upright. The minute I came inside, my feet went out from under me and down I went, twisting my injured knee a third time. I hope you aren't in too much pain and heal quickly.

As you lay in a helpless tangle of rug and crocs on the floor, did you ponder whether you were happy no one witnessed the fall, or unhappy that no one witnessed the fall ...... I am impressed that you were able to use those abs to bring yourself back up. I find that I have to get on my hands and knees in a multi-step process to get back on my feet when I find myself on the ground ......I have pain pills and would share .....

*****Sioux,Crocs are especially vicious when they fall in cahoots with a braided ne'er-do-well.

*****knancy,That's probably because after we extracted the first pterodactyl talon, the others insinuated themselves deeper into the rug. Oh, to think what I was rolling on down there...

******Linda,Did you have an audience? Someone to shine an LED spotlight onto you as you writhed? Just so the neighbors would see you through the kitchen window?

Leenie,I guess that rug was feeling downtrodden, and decided to take my foot into its own hands.

*****Kathy,I was wishing for witnesses, the better to garner sympathy and be waited on for a few days. I don't mean to present myself as superhuman. The half-abs were necessary to right myself enough to get out from under the coffee table and turn onto hands and knees. It's not like I sprang to my feet from laying on my back.

I had a straight-line red bruise on the left arm from hitting the coffee table. By the next afternoon, it had turned into a lovely magenta oblong. And by nightfall, it was a deep purple blob. Aside from the elbow and wrist aching and shaking the first several hours post-crash, the toe-canyon complaint, and the threatening-to-go-on-strike knees which must have bent unnaturally on the way down or up, I have not been in too much pain.